Archived

THE BIGGEST LITTLE LOG CABIN IN WEREBEAR COUNTY

Open on the interior of a small log
cabin. MA is at the stove, stirring a large
steaming pot. APRIL lies on one of the beds reading a book.
The front door bangs open and snow billows in as PA enters, wearing his polarbear-skin coat and carrying an armful of
wood. His beard is caked in ice.

PA:
I'm home! I brought this wood I chopped for the fireplace. Boy oh boy,
a man could freeze to death out there! Life sure is hard in the old
frontier times.

MA:
You said it! I've been slaving over this wood stove for thirteen hours
just to make us a tasty meat pie for dinner. Luckily I'm almost done.

APRIL:
It isn't even a pie! She's stirring a bunch of crap around in a pot!

MA
(Sadly): Well it was GOING to be a pie, but the only ingredients I had
were acorns and nettles. I figured I'd boil them up and we could just
pour them into a pie crust. But then I realized we didn't have any pie
crust, so I figured we could just use a bowl as the crust and eat it
out of that.

APRIL:
That's just soup! What you're describing is soup! You don't ev--

PA:
SILENCE FEMALES!

APRIL and MA stop talking. PA raises his index finger to his lips, and
then cups a hand to his ear, listening.

PA
(Whispering): I think I heard something.

There is silence for a time. Then, the
mournful howl of a bear echoes in the night. Several more bear voices
join them, and soon there are a bunch of bears howling all at once.

MA:
Oh my stars! Bears!

PA
(Narrowing his eyes and shaking his head): No, my sweet. Not just
bears...were-bears.
I can tell by the howls.

APRIL:
Werebears? Oh, shit! Someone lock the door!

PA:
There's no time! Someone needs get out there and fight them!

MA:
Well I certainly can't do it since I have to watch this pie. If it
boils over, we'll all starve!

PA:
And I'm really tired from carrying that wood from the backyard. There's
no way I could even battle one regular bear, let alone seventeen or
eighteen werebears, which is the approximate number I heard howling out
there.

MA: Curse the gods! If only I hadn't sent
all of my many sons into town at the same time to purchase large bolts
of fabric and dry-goods and such!

APRIL frowns. She looks back-and-forth between
her parents. She shrugs.

APRIL:
Whelp, I guess it falls to me then. Fear not parents, for I, your only
daughter, shall go out and fight all of those bears.

PA:
Don't be absurd! What can you, a mere woman, hope to do against a pack
of rampaging hell-beasts such as these?!

APRIL pays him no heed. She straps on a
bandolier, strides over to the weapons chest, and begins arming
herself. The bear howls grow louder and louder and once and a while one
of the bears makes a weird huffing sound like it's laughing or
something. The lever on the front door begins to jiggle up and down.

MA:
Heavens to Betsy! One of them is using the doorknob!

PA:
My god. They're...learning.

APRIL pushes between them, armed to the teeth.
She has a blunderbuss in one hand and a silver-plated tomahawk in the
other. Several other blunderbusses are strapped to her bandolier. A large barrel of moonshine is slung over
her shoulder. She wearing a coonskin cap and puffing on
a cigar.

MA:
Oh no you don't! Not in my house, young lady! You put that out this
instant!

APRIL:
But mo-ommm!
It looks cool! And I neeeeed
it!

PA:
Now now,
you heard your mother. Put it out. You can light it again once you're
outside.

APRIL:
Whatever.

APRIL rolls her eyes, snubbing the cigar out
on her arm without even flinching. MA gives a small nod of satisfaction.

APRIL:
Hold on to your butts.

MA:
What?

PA:
I really have no idea what that means.

APRIL sprints to the door and crashes through
it with a flying kick. The WEREBEAR behind it is flung backwards into the
trunk of an ancient oak. The WEREBEAR is impaled on a branch, and the trunk
snaps like a toothpick.

WEREBEAR
(Dying): ROWWWAAARRRR!

Six or seven WEREBEARS leap from a nearby bush and begin to run
towards APRIL, growling and slobbering. APRIL spins around for no reason and then
takes aim at the nearest one with her blunderbuss. She fires off a shot
and the WEREBEAR falls to the ground, still sliding
across the ice.

She tosses the blunderbuss aside and
leaps onto the WEREBEAR'S back and begins surfing on it, dropping
the rest of the onrushing WEREBEARS with blasts from her remaining
blunderbusses.

MA and PA stand in the front door,
cheering.

MA
(Punching the air): Yee-haw!
Get em!

PA:
Yippee!

The bear APRIL is surfing slides to a stop. WEREBEARS are dropping out of the trees all around
her, bellowing and snarling. They converge on her position, surrounding
her, but do not attack.

Suddenly a WEREBEAR pushes through the crowd and steps
forward. He is a large brown bear, and is wearing a hat.

PA: Look out! That one's got a hat! I think
he's their leader!

WEREBEAR LEADER: YO HO HO! DIE HUMAN!

APRIL gives the WEREBEAR LEADER an apprising glance and then runs up the
trunk of a nearby tree and does a backflip. While in the air, she clicks her heels
together and two large knives spring out of the heels of her boots. She
lands his head, and her knifeboots kill him instantly. Also his hat is
crushed.

The other WEREBEARS, enraged at the death of their leader,
begin to swarm around his still-teetering corpse in a bloodthirsty
frenzy, swatting up at APRIL with their enormous paws.

PA:
Oh no! Look out for those paws!

But it's too late. One of the paws
strikes APRIL in the thigh, and she falls into the
swarming mass of bears.

MA (Covering her eyes): She's done for! I
can't watch!

PA:
NOOOOOOOOOO!

The group of WEREBEARS is now a black maelstrom of flying fur
and teeth and claws. Snarls and bellows and the sound of crunching
bones fills the air. But then, suddenly, APRIL'S head pops out of the WEREBEAR MAELSTROM, and she crawls out of the swirling mass
of bear on her hands and knees. None of the bears seem to notice. She
stands up and lights her cigar, playing it cool. Her coonskin cap is
gone, but she is otherwise unharmed.

APRIL:
Yoo
hoo! Oh boooys!
Over hee-eere!

The WEREBEARS freeze in place, turning their heads to
look at her. In their midst stands the large barrel of moonshine. A
crude face is scrawled on it, along with the word "April", and the
coonskin cap is perched on it's lid. The wood has been punctured in
places and moonshine is leaking everywhere. APRIL smiles and takes one final puff on her
cigar, turns towards them, and winks.

APRIL:
Catch you on the flip-side, jerks.

She flicks the cigar into their midst,
setting the moonshine ablaze. There is a tremendous explosion and a
blinding flash as all the WEREBEARS are blown to bits. As the dust settles MA and PA exit the house, chuckling and shaking
their heads.

PA:
I'm sorry I doubted you, daughter. You've proven yourself to be as
strong and brave as any man, if not stronger.

MA:
I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, we no longer have any need for those
sons of ours. They'll just be dead weight. Quickly, let's pack our
things and leave before they return and ruin everything. Oh, and also I got pregnant several years
ago and had triplets; three girls. We sent them off to live in the
forest since we didn't value women, but now they're back: Look!

THREE YOUNG GIRLS walk into frame and hug APRIL.

MA:
I'd like you to meet your three sisters: Bess, Sassy, and Frankie.

BESS:
Hi sister!

SASSY:
It's nice to finally meet you!

FRANKIE:
Great to be back sis!

PA:
Since I'm a man too, I expect I'll only get in the way. You all go on
without me and create a better world.

PA walks off into the forest. MA and APRIL and BESS and SASSY and FRANKIE look at each other and shrug. Everyone
shares a laugh as hunks of burning wood and charred fur rain down
around them. The camera freeze-frames on their laughing faces.